US market grows – but not by much

The US video games market managed to grow year-on-year in October, but by a far smaller margin that some analysts had predicted.

The overall market grew one per cent to $1.08bn, with software climbing three per cent ($621.3m) and hardware six per cent ($295.6). Accessories fell five per cent to $135.9m.

Analyst Michael Pachter had predicted that software sales would climb 14 per cent to $690.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was once again the best selling console of the period, shifting 393k units – a 20 per cent year-on-year increase. Overall Xbox revenue was up 21 per cent.

Nintendo sold 250k 3DS units and 250k Wii consoles with DS selling 180k units.

EA’s Battlefield 3 was the best selling game of the period with sales of 2m units – excluding digital sales, of course. This was followed by Batman: Arkham City, NBA 2K12, Rage, Just Dance 3 and Dark Souls.

Seven of the US October Top Ten were new releases, with the Top Ten as a whole selling 23 per cent more units year-on-year.